


Proper

by Meilan_Firaga



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-28
Updated: 2015-10-28
Packaged: 2018-04-28 13:55:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5093267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/pseuds/Meilan_Firaga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for ChaoticDemon for the 2015 Spoopy Halloween Fic Exchange. On a rocky sea coast on Halloween, Hermione Granger makes a journey to a place only a few know with a very specific purpose in mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Proper

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChaoticDemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticDemon/gifts).



> This story turned out entirely differently from how I'd planned it. I started with the intent of a dark and spooky exploration fic and somewhere after the fourth or fifth paragraph it spiraled into something moderately sappy with some graphic imagery. Not entirely sure what happened there, but I was actually quite proud of how it ended up, so I decided to go with it. ChaoticDemon, I'm sorry it's not super suspenseful, but I hope you like it nonetheless.

The wind howled around the sea cliffs, whipping the waves into a frenzy. Each wave crashed against the rocks with enough force to send cold spray over twenty feet into the air. A heavy storm was poised to make landfall, its first brushes already darkening the sky and causing chaos in the water. On a tiny outcrop of rock, clutching her cloak as tightly closed as she could, Hermione Granger stood with her wand at her side.  Stepping carefully to the edge of the rock, she wordlessly lit the tip of her wand and peered over the side. There, just as Harry had described, were a series of footholds--barely more than shallow divots--leading down to the water. She could just barely see the tops of the boulders between where she stood and the cliff face where she knew she would find a very specific fissure. The tide was not on her side.

From within the cloak she drew a battered beaded bag and, with her wand between her teeth, thrust a hand inside. It only took a moment for the items she was looking for to come to her hand, still neatly collected in their mesh bag. She fumbled open the clasp on her cloak, clutching the tiny mesh bag tightly all the while, and shoved it into the beaded bag.

Hermione had been called many things in her twenty-three years, but even those who had less than appealing comments could not deny her practicality. While being a witch was all well and good, she was a perfect advocate for the philosophy of not wasting energy with magic when a Muggle solution would work just as well. She reversed the shrinking spell on the tiny mesh bag with minimal effort and set the whole thing down with a clank that might have been audible if not for the wind howling around her. From there it was a simple matter to sort out the wetsuit she was already wearing and situate her S.C.U.B.A. gear. She was fully equipped, under the water, and surprisingly cosy in less than a quarter hour, the beaded bag strapped tightly to her wrist.

Beneath the waves the boulders were more of rounded pillars extending down to the base of the cliff some twenty meters below the surface. The water was even darker than it had looked, but a lit wand in one hand and miniature torches on the top of her goggles helped Hermione find her way around the pillars to the dark fissure in the cliff face without too much searching. Even with the high tide and the sea swollen from the storm the fissure wasn’t that deep. It was like swimming in pitch. No wildlife could be seen, though she supposed that might have been from the incoming storm. As she swam, following the curve of the tunnel as Harry had described, she mused over the lies she’d told to get this night. Ron and Harry were with the Weasleys just as they were every Halloween. Her parents were attending parties in the same neighborhood she’d grown up in, their memories fully restored. Hermione had been invited to go with either group, but she’d begged off with the excuse of work.

Work, of course, was not what kept her from celebrating. She’d been seventeen when Albus Dumbledore died, and not much older when Kreacher had revealed the tale of Slytherin’s locket. That meant at least five years that she’d been planning this trip. Five years that she had spent researching to make sure she could accomplish her goal.

The end of the tunnel came and Hermione surfaced, spitting her regulator out with no small amount of joy. Muggles were ingenious with their water breathing devices, but the canned air was not particularly enjoyable. She took the tanks off in the water and levitated them onto the rock flooring of what Harry had described as the entryway before getting out herself. Flicking out another spell brought a brightly glowing orb into existence above her head, lighting the entire room as if by an overhead fixture. Where Harry had seen nothing but stone walls, she was instead met with a slightly crumbling silver archway over a path that led deeper into the rock.

Just imagine, she thought with a huff, anyone could waltz in and find the Inferi with no searching at all! The simpler magic of the archway had faded with Voldemort’s death, leaving no demand for a price to move further into the cave. Hermione followed the passage, the glowing orb following behind her, fuming all the while that no one from the Ministry had thought to go and have a look where Voldemort had woven a mass of dark spells in a place he used to visit as a child. If one psychotic boy wizard could find his way there, it was easy to believe that another could do the same. The Muggleborn Registry had been destroyed during the war, so there were far too many young magical talents unaccounted for.

The smell reached her nose before she came to the underground lake. That answers that question, she thought, casting a quick Bubble-Head Charm before continuing. Some dark magics, it was rumored, would not fade like other magics when the witch or wizard who cast them passed away. Many believed that the sacrifices required to create such magics were so great that they fueled the spells indefinitely until someone unwound them. Scholars had debated for centuries whether or not Inferi would fall under that category, but none had ever found proof for either side of the argument. Hermione now had an entire lake full of bloated, rotting corpses to prove that Inferi were not a magic type that would endure.

Stepping up to the edge of the lake, Hermione stared across its surface and the various states of decay before her. Magic fades over time, she reminded herself. So it would stand to reason that the oldest corpses may have already fallen to skeletons, while the last ones reanimated may even still be recognizable. There were so many--far too many for a single person to do much of anything about. Still, her position within the Ministry meant that she might be able to do a fair bit of something now that she knew they were here. Decided, she straightened her back. She had come to the cave to complete a single task. She would finish that one, and then worry about the others.

Hermione walked around the end of the lake, her eyes fixed on the dim green light in the distance. She thought it might be hard to guess where Harry and Dumbledore had boarded the boat, but she found it run aground on the shore. She stood several feet back from it and cast a series of Shield Charms that would form a nearly impenetrable barrier all around her. Then, she sat down on the ground, closed her eyes, and concentrated. First, she thought of a tapestry. The image had been faded, but whole. Then, she focused on a picture in a frame, one face out of an entire team. Finally, she replayed a speech of love, descriptions from the mouth of a creature who’d worshipped his master. She flicked her wrist without opening her eyes and stayed focused on those memories until a careful thump echoed against her shields. She dropped her wand, wary of what she could see, and then opened her eyes.

Regulus Black had been so very young. Barely eighteen when he’d died, and clearly the last of Voldemort’s Inferi to be added to the lake. His body was, perhaps, the most well preserved of the many still floating in the water. It seemed to almost have a sense of life remaining, which Hermione was sure must only be the lingering effects of magic used to desecrate him. Lowering the Shield Charms, she leaned forward to get a closer look. No, there was definitely no life--magical or otherwise--left in the body of Regulus Black. Shaking her head, Hermione stood. Summoning up a great deal of willpower, she cast the strongest preservation spell she could think of across the whole of the lake. With luck, it might prevent the remaining bodies from decomposing further for at least a month. Then, she turned her attention back to Regulus.

Of all the spells she’d studied in the last five years--breaking blood magic, offensive fire spells, rituals to un-puppet an Inferius--the ones she was about to use were the ones she’d thought she would need the least. They took her nearly three hours to complete. When she was done, she levitated the body back along the lakeshore and through the short passage to the entryway where she’d left her gear. She sat the body down gently while she shrank the gear once more and deposited it in her beaded bag. Taking a deep breath, she called for Kreacher. Working at Hogwarts meant that Kreacher no longer had an owner, but like Dobby he had chosen to pick and choose those he’d let summon him. He appeared--albeit grudgingly--in a matter of minutes, but he had no thoughts for Hermione the moment he saw his former master.

Witches and wizards studied for years to properly embalm a body for funereal rights. The process had been an afterthought, but Hermione had still made her studies thorough.

“You can bury him properly now, Kreacher,” she said gently. “I’ll help in whatever way you need.”

 

 


End file.
